SILVER SPRING, MD – Planners and the residents they serve continually confront nagging suburban problems like sprawl and congestion. How can planners use transportation solutions to minimize sprawl? How might new development make a community more sustainable? What needs to happen for a great-looking building to replace the aging albatross up the street?
Learn more about tried-and-true solutions to contemporary planning challenges at Makeover Montgomery, a 2½-day conference to be held April 14-16 in College Park and Silver Spring. Professional planners, architects, environmental experts, representatives from the business industry and nonprofit organizations, academicians and others will present successful strategies to improve suburbs throughout North America.
The conference, co-hosted by the Montgomery County Planning Department, the National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education and the Urban Studies and Planning Program, both at the University of Maryland, will offer more than a dozen sessions featuring innovative solutions to some of the suburbs’ most pressing problems.The sessions will be presented by top smart growth experts from across the United States and Canada.
Topics include:
- Planning tools to counter sprawl
- Transportation networks that really work
- An analysis of sustainability strategies, from LEED to urban-style development
- Designing redevelopment projects on a small scale
- Creating pedestrian-friendly town centers
- Engaging communities in redevelopment projects
- Stormwater regulations and how they affect suburban redevelopment
The conference also will highlight Montgomery County’s Zoning Code Rewrite project, an effort to modernize and revise the current antiquated, decades-old code over the next two years.
Learn more and register ($25) at www.montgomeryplanning.org/rethink2011. Conference sessions will take place at the Silver Spring Civic Building in downtown Silver Spring and at the University of Maryland. Continuing education credits (AICP certification maintenance credits) are pending for planning professionals.
Who:
Montgomery County Planning Department
The National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education and the Urban Studies and Planning Program, University of Maryland
What:
Makeover Montgomery: Innovative Strategies for Rethinking America’s Suburbs Conference
When:
April 14, 2011
School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
April 15-16, 2011
Silver Spring Civic Building
One Veterans Place
Silver Spring, MD 20910
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